THE RULING ON JOKING TOO MUCH AMONG FRIENDS – SHAIKH IBN UL-‘UTHAYMEEN

Question: We are a group of youth who pray, fast, and do what we can of acts of worship, Allah praise is due to Allah. However, when we are relaxing afterwards there is a lot of joking between us. So what is the ruling in that? May Allah reward you.

Answer: ”First, we ask Allah, the Exalted to make these brothers firm upon what they do of acts of worship and that He make that worship upon a form that He is pleased with according to the guidance of the Prophet sallahu alayhi wa salam without extremism and short-coming. We say: that you stay firm in the acts of worship you do. As for joking afterwards, then there is no good in too much joking. It is said: joking in terms of speech is like salt in food. Food is not good without salt nor when there is a lot of salt.

Next, some people transgress in joking. So he may mention some profane words against the right of his brothers which is not befitting. Sometimes that leads to what is worse than, such as the mockery of some acts of worship from the religion. This is very, very dangerous. It leads to disbelief and Allah’s refugee is sought. So it is upon them to joke moderately without exaggeration and short-coming”.

[Noor ‘ala Darb no. 617]

Translated by

Faisal Ibn Abdul Qaadir Ibn Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan